Yukiya Amano will head efforts to police the spread of nuclear weapons. Credit: D. CALMA/IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted in Japan's Yukiya Amano as its next director general on 2 July. Amano, 62, won the necessary two-thirds majority of the IAEA's 35-member board by a single vote to beat chief rival Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa, considered a favourite of the non-nuclear-weapons countries.

Based in Vienna, the IAEA is the international body charged with policing the nuclear-nonproliferation treaty (NPT), the primary agreement meant to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

Amano is a lawyer by training and has an extensive background in disarmament and nonproliferation. Pending final approval in September by the 146-member IAEA general conference, he will succeed Mohamed ElBaradei, who has led the agency since 1997 and who along with the agency received the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. With a reputation for a quiet, low-key style, Amano is unlikely to have the profile of ElBaradei, whose occasionally inflammatory comments made headlines.